On Christmas Eve, my brother slammed my laptop shut after I refused to pay his $18,000 debt. “You’re useless without your money,” he snapped. And my dad added, “Don’t come back until you fix this.”
I just smiled, stood up, and called my accountant.
“Everything’s exactly as we expected. Trigger the lock.”
Twenty minutes later. My name is Ryan.
I turned 35 last October. Though nobody in my family remembered to call, that was fine. I had gotten used to being the quiet one, the dependable one, the one who showed up with solutions instead of problems.
For most of my adult life, I had been the person my family called when rent was short, when car payments were late, when medical bills piled up on kitchen counters. I was an investment banker at a midsized firm in Chicago, pulling in a decent salary with good bonuses. Not rich, but comfortable.
Comfortable enough that when my younger brother Dererick called at 2 in the morning six years ago, voice shaking because his startup idea needed capital, I wired him $15,000 without asking for a business plan. Derek was 28 back then, full of energy and big dreams about disrupting the logistics industry. He had this way of talking that made everything sound inevitable, like success was just around the corner if he could just get past this one obstacle.
Our parents adored him. Mom used to say Dererick had the magic touch, that he reminded her of those young tech founders you see on magazine covers. Dad would nod along, beaming with pride every time Dererick mentioned another potential client or partnership deal.
They talked about him at every family dinner, replayed his accomplishments to relatives, framed his college diploma even though he dropped out after two years to chase his business vision. I finished my MBA. I worked 70-hour weeks for three years to make associate.
I bought my own condo, paid off my student loans early, built a retirement portfolio that actually made sense. None of that ever came up at family gatherings. When I walked into my parents’ house for holidays, Mom would hug me quickly and then immediately ask if I had seen Dererick’s latest Instagram post about his company’s new office space.
Dad would pat my shoulder and say something like, “Good to see you’re doing fine,” then turn the conversation back to Dererick’s networking events or speaking engagements. I told myself it was okay. Family dynamics are complicated.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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